Chapter 13 (S875)

Explosions thundered overhead in the floating labyrinth while Celeste and Picton clashed against the Elementas. They'd figured early on that it was best for Picton to harass the ones acting as artillery platforms, but that left Celeste to fend for herself, which was rough even with Picton keeping the fire off her.

Just by looking at them she could tell that the eyes and the antennae were thinly armored, but they weren't easy to exploit with the pressure they kept on her. A shiver ran down her back as she backed up into the invisible barrier.

Why of all times would her teammates perform such a restricting move? Capable as Azure and Rin might be, there was no way they'd perform such a move unless they had absolutely had to. They were here to help, not to attack them!

The lumbering soldier-class Elementa suddenly rushed through the pack with an unforeseen burst of speed. Celeste prepared to counterattack as it smashed into the invisible wall, but her heart stopped as it almost instantaneously lined up a shot on her.

What?!

A ball of fire engulfed her, and she felt herself scraping across the forest floor, stopping short of a boulder. She clenched her teeth in pain as she scrambled to her feet, doubling back through the trail of dust she left behind. Weak points or not, she had to counterattack to keep it off-balance. If that thing landed a few more hits like that, she'd be done for.

When she emerged out of the smoke, she ran underneath its belly and swung La Massicot at the undersides of its knees. Its armor gave away, but her cut didn't run deep enough. Her breath escaped her as she slid into the reach of another two Elementas camping on the other side.

There was no time - She couldn't turn or dodge. One of them batted her to the side just as she raised La Massicot to block. She tumbled across the ground as a small barrage of artillery rocked the ground.

Celeste coughed as she got up and realized how far she'd been tossed. It literally felt as if she had no time to breath - Only minutes after they'd engaged, she was feeling short on breath. If she could get underneath the soldier again, she could probably severe a set of legs, but she couldn't imagine getting close without getting intercepted by its entourage.

Picton was having just as much trouble as Celeste was. It helped that they couldn't keep him locked for more than a moment, but the fact that there were so many of them kept him from lining up good strikes against them.

Worse yet, it felt like they were getting gradually better and better at tracking him, as if they were communicating between each other to coordinate their attacks. Of course he couldn't know for sure, but the only way he could curb the possibility was to finish them, which was a challenge with his weapons.

Neither his forearm blade the Notus or his short sword Boreas was designed to penetrate armor, making direct combat ineffective. Instead he was forced to strike the weak points, as instructed by Celeste - The antennae, and the eyes.

But he couldn't bide his time waiting for a good shot at them, otherwise they'd start shooting at Celeste, who was clearly having problems of her own. As blue particles began swirling around the antennae of a nearby Elementa, he dove out of the shrubbery and vaulted up its legs onto its back. It tried to shake him off, but he was quick on his feet and was able to amputate its antennae, causing the enormous bug to crumble to the ground.

The others were quick to react, and unleashed a burst of bolts at him, not caring at all that they were destroying the corpse of one of their comrades. Bits of splintered armor rattled his aura as he returned to cover.

That's very bad news…

A peek at his personal monitor indicated that his aura was down to just over 50% - He had to be more careful. But how much more careful could he get? Letting Celeste get shot wasn't an option, but nor was his current approach. They seemed to take no issue with turning their dead into giant grenades, so every strike was a roll of the dice.

With a few seconds of patience, he identified two Elementas that had split from the artillery group to stand as guards. Before giving it a second thought, Picton pulled the pin out of a smoke grenade, and slid it into the forest through the cover of the trees. Almost immediately both guards were on it - That was his cue.

Picton rushed toward a couple that were a bit too close to each other, and once more leapt onto one of their backs. Instead of cutting the antennae, he slashed both eyes with the Boreas, and jumped to the head of the second one, punching the Notus into one of its eyes. As it collapsed to the ground, he hide behind it in time for the corpse of the first Elementa to explode.

Thankfully, they didn't see him duck behind their second fallen comrade, giving him time to scope out the rest. There weren't many left - Less than a dozen including the soldier remained. The air in his lungs shook as an thunderous boom rocked the forest.

The soldier and its entourage had gotten momentum against her, and were pushing her into the middle of an open field where the rest of the battery could fire on her. He jumped over the fresh corpse, and slashed at every Elementa he passed, hoping to cause chaos. Several turned to attack him, but the others continued charging bolts to fire simultaneously at her.

His gut dropped - That was it. There was nothing more he could do to help his teammate. "CELESTE! INCOMING!"